Sunday, June 28, 2009

Sweet press

Check it out -- we made the paper!

http://leelanaunews.com/drupal/?q=node/9396

Rained

Hey it rained.  Now I can go back to weeding instead of watering.  Oh farm, your variety never bores me.  This rain will cause things to shoot up super fast.  We completely sold out of vegetables at the last farmer's market.  Next week we'll have peas in addition to beets, chard, kale, arugula, cilantro, radishes, turnips and mustard greens.  July 4th we are hosting a potluck at the farm.  Come on by -- we are making sausage.


Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Going dry

Well it's been a hot start to summer.  We haven't had rain in about 10 days with none forecasted.  We've been watering a lot, which is a bit tedious but absolutely vital.  With the heat many of our leafy greens are bolting (going to seed).  Tomorrow we'll be selling at the Traverse City farmer's market for the first time to offoad our extra arugula.  We hosted a solstice dinner which went off without a hitch, though we were nearly overrun by one of the biblical plagues.  Can you guess which one?  I've actually had a harder time uploading the pictures than growing the damn vegetables, so you'll all have to wait for images of the dinner.  Everything in the garden is growing super fast.  Peas are flowering and the fava beans are about to bean up.  Yesterday we planted all the cucumbers.  Way to many.  We'll have pickles for sure.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Summer

What a wonderful weekend at the farm.  Gauri and Laura were up to visit.  We had a huge harvest from the garden -- kale, spinach, spicy salad mix, turnips, braising greens, and tons of radishes.  Abra's dad dropped off this totally awesome puke green 1970 Ford pickup for us to use for the summer.  You can see the road through the rust holes in the floor.  Awesome.  We all worked this weekend hauling rocks and setting them into a rock wall for our herb bed.   We've also finally been able to plant the tomatoes (10 rows!) and soon the peppers will go in.  Late, I know.  We are keeping the plants covered at night -- we hope that a little bit of extra nighttime warmth will jumpstart their growth.  Already I am doing the mental addition... "It's June 16th today and these squash need 100 days to mature, so that means they'll be ready by September 25.  That's two days before the first average frost, so we should be okay..."
 
This weekend we are hosting our first dinner.  Abra put together a great five course meal featuring some local rabbit.  We orginally had hoped to use the chickens, but fortunately for them, they aren't quite plump enough yet.  Too much running around and not enough confinement I guess.
 
For anyone interested, we are planning a July 4th potluck at the farm.  Then into Northport for fireworks.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Obama's organic garden

I thought the Obama's putting in an organic garden at the Whitehouse was super inspiring.  Not the pesticide industry and all their blind foloowers.  They wrote a letter complaining about being ignored:  http://www.croplife.com/news/?storyid=1657

not a joke.


Jack Frost

It's been cold.  Unseasonably cold.  I'd complain, but that isn't what farming is all about.  It isn't supposed to frost in June.  But it did.  I realize as I write this that all of you who questioned the feasibility of  farming up here in this frigid wilderness are having your doubts confirmed.  But it normally isn't this cold.  Also, we are prepared.  The veggies in our cold frames are doing wonderfully.  We've covered up the rest of our rows with long sheets of spun polyester called floating-row covers.  They rest lightly atop the plants at night and keep the ground warm.  Things that aren't covered up are killed.  Things under the blanket keep on keepin' on.  It's a pretty good system, but stressful.  I'd rather things were warmer.